Halloween
by CHAOS REIGNS OVER ALL
Summary: They just wanted thier last Halloween to memorable. They didn't expect to be dropped into the middle of a fantasy world that was just like the books they loved so well. Set in the Herald's world. No mary-sues!
1. Chapter 1

"Coco! Hold still! You have to wear your harness to go outside", I tried to help my friend wrestle her kitten into his leash, no easy task when said leash is wrapped in ribbon and said kitten is bound and determined to eat it.

"Hey, Windy! We're gonna be late if you don't hurry up", I rolled my eyes at my twin sisters need to point out the obvious.

"Then we'll be late. It's not like Azrin won't understand." Then I got distracted by trying to figure out how many negatives I'd just used and then obsessing over whether or not it had made sense anyway.

"I'm really sorry guys. Coco normally lets me put his harness on no problem. Do you want to go on ahead?"

"Well we would except for that whole thing where you wouldn't have a ride to the party." Zara shook her head and came over to help so that she and I were holding the stupid cat while Ariana put his harness on. He somehow managed to twist around and lodge a claw in the skin between my thumb and forefinger but we got his leash on, so I'd call it a win.

"Zephyr? Are you okay?" This was probably spurred by the fact that I was clutching my hand mouthing obscenities.

"The little fart tried to take my thumb off!" I examined my hand and was relieved to find out that I did still have a thumb. "Whatever. Now that he's got his leash on lets go", Ary looked at me nervously since I was still glaring at her cat in a way that suggested I was seriously considering "accidently" stepping on him in the near future. My friends are all very familiar with this look.

"Don't forget your Companion", Zara snickered as she referenced the white stuffed horse I had brought to complete my Herald costume. I clubbed her with it.

None of us were legal drivers yet so we'd enlisted Ariana's mom to drive us to Azrin's house which had been done up in grand Nightmare Before Christmas style. It was a small party, just the four of us and technically Azy's parents. We arrived before sundown so we all had some soda and chips until it got dark enough for trick-or-treating. Once we'd gotten outside the streets were crowded with mini-monsters and already some kids had started bawling. We had planned this for a while since there's apparently an unspoken age limit to Halloween and we made sure to arrive in a group of kids so that it looked like we'd been walking with them. This went on for a while until Azy nearly tripped over this one kid. He was right on the edge of the streetlights pool of illumination and he had obviously been crying.

"Hey, what's the matter kid?" I crouched down next to him. He looked at me sadly and shook his head.

"'m not supos'd to talk to strangers." He kept crying silently and I noticed that the streetlight made his tears look almost golden.

"Are you allowed to talk to the police?" I was thinking fast. He nodded so I continued, "Well, I'm a Herald and we're a special kind of police, so you can talk to me right?" He looked dubious.

"I guess so…"

"Good", I smiled in relief. "So what's the matter?"

"I can't find my mommy. We were walking along and I wasn't holding her hand 'cuz I'm too old for that and this big crowd comes by and I have to stop but mommy kept walking and I can't find her!" He spoke quickly, his voice going higher towards the end.

"Don't worry we'll help you find her", Zara stepped forward and the kid shrank back.

"This is my sister, she's a Swordsworn which means that she has to protect people so you can talk to her too." I decided to just go ahead and introduce all my friends, so pointing at Ariana I continued "And she's a priestess so she's super trustworthy. And she" I pointed at Azy "is a Bard, so she's silly but nice." The kid had stopped crying and was now smiling. "So, what we're gonna do is go look for your mom, but she's probably looking for you too so you need to tell us what she looks like so we can find her, and Ariana'll wait here with you. Okay?" The kid nodded and described your everymom. This required a new plan, "Alright, can you tell me your name?"

"Kantis", he smiled and for a minute I swear his teeth glowed. "Thank you for helping me." Then the world turned inside out and started somersaulting. I ended up on the ground head-first.

"Oooooowwwwww. My brain doesn't like the ground!" I sat up quickly and fell back down. I had landed pretty hard and provided a cushion for the rest of my friends.

"Did that kid say Kantis?" Zara had landed the best out of all of us.

"I'm gonna worry about that after I worry about what just happened. Did I just pass out or something?"

"Yes, Zephyr you passed out and we all decided to stomp on you until you woke up. 'Cause that's the kind of friends we are!" Azy's very sarcastic.

"See that's what I thought, but it fails to explain that one teensy little detail of where we are. I seem to recall your neighborhood not having cobbled streets." I was looking around in earnest now, and getting even more excited about what I saw. "This place looks medieval!"

"But, where are we?" That Ariana. Always the buzz kill.

"I dunno. Why don't we ask the nice man with the sword." And my sister, the crazy one. Actually it would have been a good plan except that the nice man didn't speak English or Japanese or French. Or as far as we could tell anything else we'd ever heard before.

"I'm sorry. We don't understand!" I was trying to calm him down by repeating that over and over but it wasn't working he kept talking and pointing at my costume, repeating the same sentence.

"We don't-" I was interrupted by the arrival of a scarred man in a similar outfit to mine, except that his was dark grey. "Who the hell?"

He glared at me and rattled off the same sentence. I assumed that it meant "Who are you, why are you here?" I could not however answer.

"I'm sorry, I don't understand. Um、すみません、わたしは　わかりません. Zara, tell them we don't understand! In French." To my surprise however the man in grey spoke in something similar to Japanese. I still couldn't understand him but at least now we had something to go on!

"すみません、でも、すこしを　わかります。やさし、はなさないでください。" I really should have payed more attention in Japanese class. I had told him I understood little and asked for easy talk please. At least, that's what I'd tried to say. I heard Coco sneeze behind me, and the sound of him struggling free of Ary's arms.

I believe that what my humans friend is trying to say is that she doesn't understand your question. If she could actually manage to form a coherent sentence I believe she would-

That was when things clicked. "Coco? You're a firecat?" Everyone else was staring at the heavenly being with awe.

He rolled his eyes as Ary desperately tried to get someone to explain what I was talking about. Of course. You really are startling ignorant sometimes.

"I prefer to think of it as having a solid grasp on reality. You see, in my experience no matter how hard you try to will yourself into the realm of a book, it just doesn't happen. However, here we are. "

Ariana had picked Coco up again, and with a remarkable display of adaptation demanded that he explain himself. The guard, and the man I assumed to be Albritch had moved on from staring at the cat, to staring at our odd little group.

"Ummmm…Ary? While I respect your desire for an explanation and wouldn't deny you one we do kind of need Coco to tell us what the nice people are saying."

I ignored Azy's comment in favor of tensing at the chiming I'd heard from behind me. Things clicked a little bit more as I realized two very important facts. 1) we were apparently in Valdemar and 2) Valdemar has Companions. The one behind me was probably Kantor but I caught my breath in the fantastic hope that, maybe, just maybe, the fact that I was important enough for dimensional transport meant that I was important enough for a companion too.

"Umm…Windy, you might want to remember to breath…"

I gasped and took deep breaths for a while. As I caught my breath I was struck by a paralyzing thought. What if one of us was going to get chosen, but it wasn't me?

"Windy, someone wants to talk with you." Zara had a grin in her voice. She was well aware of the fact that I'd do any number of morally questionable things to have a Companion of my own. I spun, and met a perfectly blue eyes. I can't even describe the sensation of being chosen. You may have known unconditional love in your life, may even have given some, but I guarantee that no matter how loved you've been, you have never experienced anything like the Companion bond.

:Hello Chosen. My name is Aden, and I choose you:

I, very coherently, responded "Ah bah, duh, SQUEEEEEE!!!!" I then wrapped my arms around his neck in a strangle hold and continued making vague sounds of happiness into his mane. It was fuzzy. I could hear the others talking and getting a rough idea of what had happened but I lost myself to the joy of having something I had never thought I'd get. Eventually Zara tugged my arm, signaling that we were moving and I followed the group, still not releasing my grip.


	2. Chapter 2

The palace was just as amazing as I would have expected it to be. We came to what was clearly your everyday entrance and Aden shook himself slightly. :Chosen, you need to let go:

I tensed and he continued :I can't fit in the palace and you need to go get settled.:

:Bu-bu-but, I don't wanna!:

My friends all managed to intuit where this conversation would lead without needing to actually hear anything we said. They gathered around me and started to pry my hands off Aden's neck.

"geez Zephyr, he's still gonna be your Companion tomorrow."

"See that's exactly what I'm afraid of. What if I'm hallucinating? Then he'd disappear."

"And you can fix this by refusing to let him go?"

"Don't know till I try."

My friends sighed and backed away.

:Chosen. Look at me.:

"Don't need to tell me twice" I filled my eyes with his impossible beauty.

:The eyes, Chosen, look me in the eyes.:

That rang alarm bells, and I looked away from his face. "Seriously, do I have to go in?"

Not really, if you told them you didn't want to be separated from your companion just yet they would probably let you stay outside. Coco oozed self assurance.

I sighed, "I'll miss you." I released my death grip on his neck and stepped away. I ruthlessly suppressed the crippling insecurity that attacked me. It was hard enough believing that something like this was happening to me without letting go of the only tangible proof I had.

:Honey, we can't just un-choose people.:

:but you can be hallucinations, right?: I've always been incredibly good at rationalizing my irrational emotions. At least in my head it makes sense.

:Um…no.:

I shook my head and stepped into the castle. We managed to figure out, through elaborate hand gestures, broken Japanese and occasional help from Coco that we were going to have to wait until tomorrow to get our paperwork taken care of, because apparently people dressed as, respectively, a Bard, a Sunpriestess, a Swordsworn and a Herald who don't speak any familiar language aren't unusual enough to wake people up for. I had the sneaking feeling that it was much later here than back home. We all had rooms near each other but to ourselves, and I paced mine for a little while before collapsing exhausted onto the bed and falling into a deep and dreamless sleep.

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I woke the next morning to a pillow being thrown onto my face, causing my muscles to spasm wildly for a couple of seconds before my brain remembered how to be awake.

"'Morning Windy."

"Muh. 'Panion?" I'm not really very coherent in the mornings.

"Presumably" Zara refuses to speak in sentences longer than two sentences until she's awake enough to know what comes out of her mouth. People avoid us in the morning for some reason. "Time go. Do stuff"

"Muh. Buh, out…soon. Go."

"word…mean…go, fast…Hurry!"

"Nuh" Have you ever tried attending school when you can't remember the word for "yes"? It's not easy. The hardest part is that some people still try to engage us in conversation before we're awake. They generally walk away muttering about how zombies have larger vocabularies.

I stumbled out of the room a couple minutes later barely managing to process that Azy appeared to be sleep walking and that Ary looked sickeningly cheerful. Stupid morning people.

"Wha' do?"

"I think we're going somewhere to learn to speak the language. At least I think that's what the guy said."

"Coco?"

"He's being inscrutable."

I grunted and gestured at the hallway that I thought led outside.

"Think so." Zara nodded and grabbed Azy dragging her after us as we trailed through the halls, miraculously getting lost only once before finding our way outside.

There waited a short woman, and Albritch. As well as some deer-like things that I assumed were Dhyeli. Aden came up behind us and I threw one arm over his neck.

:We want to have the Dhyeli teach you and your friends Valdemarean, they do that by implanting someone else's memories of their language into your head. Are you okay with that?:

"Murrrr…." I rubbed my face against his neck.

:Uh, can you tell your friends about it and get their permission?:

"Not…thing…where, think good…"

"Competent?" Ary waited for my nod as a formality then continued. "What do we need to be competent for?"

"Thing…Dhyeli brain…go into…learn to speak much good." At home it takes a coffee IV before I can go to school.

"Really? Would they change anything in our heads?"

"Can. Won't. Coco not let…mess with you."

Ary nodded. "Well I'm okay with it then, what should I do?"

"'Splain to…" I gestured at the other two "uh…them. Get 'mission."

"Sounds good."

:She really understands you?:

"Think so. Long time friends. Dyheli?"

:Oh! Yeah, just go stand in front of him and look him in the eyes. :

"Coo'" I stumbled over to the Dhyeli trying to figure out what I was forgetting about the whole set-up. Nothing came to me until three minutes later when I woke up with a splitting headache.

"Owwww" My friends were all moaning around me. Then there was a flask of something in front of me.

"Drink this. It'll help with the pain."

"Thanks, mystery lady." I chugged the vile tasting liquid.

"Owwww,I want coffee." Azy had rejoined the land of the living so I passed her the flask. Gesturing that she should pass it around.

"I dunno, I kind of think that the pain did just as good a job." I paused as it suddenly hit me that we weren't speaking English.

"You didn't say it would hurt!" Ary looked at the flask suspiciously.

"Didn't say it wouldn't either. Drink the medicine, it makes the blinding pain become merely itchy"

She rolled her eyes and took a drink before passing it to Zara who was rolling around muttering curse words.

"Now that we can all understand each other would you mind explaining who you are?"

"I'd love to, but I'm not sure."

Albritchs eyes narrowed suspiciously "Amnesia?"

"Sudden re-definment of my basic character." I loved getting a chance to say stuff like that.

"What?" The mystery lady's brow furrowed in confusion.

"It's a long story and your going to have to take a lot of it on faith." I waited for her nod then continued, "first, we come from an alternate dimension but that's not the weird part. You see in our world we have a series of books based on Velgarth. My friends and I all decided to dress up as a class of character from those books for Halloween."

"Halloween is a holiday where people dress up as monsters and stuff and get candy from their neighbors." Zara jumped in when the lady looked confused. "So we've all gotten dressed up and have just gone out to get some candy when we trip over this kid who's all freaked out, we help him, next thing we know we're standing in the street where you found us."

"Hence, not knowing who we are. This is no longer our world, and all our old rules for defining ourselves no longer apply. Also, I have a Companion now."

"I see. How about you start with your names?"

"What's in a name?..." I started to wax philosophical and Zara smacked me. "Fine. I'm…I forget."

"Your Zephyr."

"Oh yeah! It's still a little early for this. Refresh my memory who are you?"

"I'm your sister."

"oh. huh. Usually I remember that by the time I can speak."

"Maybe the Dyheli made it so you can talk even though you can't think. Is that possible?" Zara retreated into hypothetical land. I remembered what we were supposed to be doing and turned to the lady again.

"Sorry, where were we?"

"It might be best if we do this later." She was grinning bemusedly at us and I shook my head.

"No, No, Ary can introduce us. She usually remembers who everyone is in the morning."

"Right" Ary did remember everyone's name and she went quickly through the introductions then asked who the mystery lady was.

"Ah, yes. I'm Herald Talia."

I think my eyes actually bulged out of my head, but at least I didn't make as much a fool out of myself as Azy who slammed her hand on the ground and yelled "Queens Own!"

She was probably dreaming that she was on Jeopardy! She does that a lot. I was really surprised at how calm everyone was about us randomly appearing with such a fantastic story at least until I started to wonder what was really so strange about it. Then I caught on.

"Hey, Aden…you didn't mention you were a Jedi."

:a what?: he took a minute to fish through my brain and understand the reference and then I got a mental wince. :is it really that obvious?:

:If you know what you're looking for. And especially if you haven't been told your entire life that Companions are good and right and they'd never screw with your head if it was dangerous…:

:Smart ass.:

:Don't fuck with my brain dude. I like my brain.:

"Zephyr?" Ary shook my shoulder slightly.

"Huh, whuh? Sorry, I was kind of zoned out there. What's going on?"

"I'm apparently a Sunpriestess now." She looked pretty disgruntled about it.

"Huh, cool. So is Zara a swordsworn? And Ary a Bard? Cuz you know, with my crazy ability to think ahead I've kind of figured out that whatever brought us here is pretty much letting us be what we want. I am so doing more favors for gods."

"I don't think I'm Swordsworn."

"Would you like to be?" The voice that rang out was not beautiful. In fact, it was kinda scary. And by kinda I mean very, but you know? Compared to the fact that the entire world stopped moving as they finished the sentence it wasn't that big a deal.

"Buh-huh?" Zara spun around as I tried to remain completely motionless. I didn't want Scary Voice knowing that I wasn't frozen. "Ummm, well, yeah. That's why I dressed up as one for Halloween."

At that point Scary Voice started talking in French, which I do not understand. I did however understand

Zara's response mostly because it was Oui. I was not at all prepared for what happened next since I'd never actually noticed anything like the "twin bond" before. I suppose if it's always there then you take it for granted. What happened was that I felt something give me a mental shove away from my sister, which caused me to abandon my attempt to stay motionless and shout "Leave that alone!" at the top of my lungs.

Upon turning around I reconsidered my course of action as I made eye contact with a pair of not-eyes. It was like looking into a cloudless night sky and I finally figured out what was going on. "Oh. Um. You wouldn't happen to be a goddess would you? May I rephrase my last statement?"

"Please do." She grinned at me and I forced a social smile onto my face.

"Thank you. What I meant to say was that my sister is very important to me and I would appreciate it if you would not sever the bond we have. Or in fact mess with it in any way, shape or form." I paused considering then nodded. "Yeah that's how I want it to sound."

She continued smiling. "That would not be possible. Your bond with her must change for the Swordsworn bond to take effect."

"Change. It doesn't have to go away? Or weaken? I can deal with change."

"Hey hold on!" Zara inturrupted our conversation. "Will it be okay if I read yaoi still?"

I cracked up at that and The Goddess smiled even wider. "Of course it will. Have you any other concerns?" She said it like an insurance salesman would and Zara shook her head mutely. "Good" at that the world unfroze. "Then I accept you into my service." as she spoke she locked eyes with Herald Talia, presumably making sure that there was a reliable witness to the swearing.

Azy blinked once and shook her head "Well, looks like it's going to be an interesting day."

We all attempted to murder her for cliché abuse but that's hard to do when your laughing hysterically.


End file.
